It is settled in the period after the Commonwealth War.
Charles II came to London as King o England
He leaned to Catholicism and believed in the divine right of kings. He was Against the Puritan Tradition.
England : -became democratic.
- Increase the sea power.
- Stability and order were the rules there. "Live and let live" An era of religious, political and commercial conflict
Charles died and James II. He started a period of terror loosing the suport of every sector of society. He did not respect all that his brother did.
-He converted Protestants seminaries into Catholic ones, dismissed Oxford Proffesors, turned deaf ear to the will of Parliament, etc. Death of the "divine rigths" of kings.
William of Orange, James''s son in law, rose against him.
James was abdicated and Williams came to the Throne. This period was called the Glorious Revolution of 1688 because it had been a bloodless one.
The divine rights disappeared and William's politic was 'government by people' i.e Parliament became supreme, the cabinet form of rule was inaugurated, a bill of all rigths was adopted and toleration of conflicting faiths was the order of times.
Financial stability and material prosperity were known in England after the Bank was chatered
New Classical Literature
Restoration and Rennaisance compared: a new world of artistic endeavor and experimentation was open for the exploration of both the here and the beyond. It was replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination on invention and experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason. Men was the most appropriate subject of art, and saw art itself as essentially pragmatic — as valuable because it was somehow useful — and as something which was properly intellectual rather than emotional.
Rennaisance and Puritan 'otherworldliness' compared: in the restoration period, there was and inclination to accept the reality of the present, to write circunstances as they were. Renaissance thought was pagan, fanciful and experimental; Puritan thought was tied to the mandates of the supernatural, as represented in Reformation orthodoxy. The restoration attempted to restore some of the lightness to literature , but the result is artificially
From subjectivity towards objectivity
The age of the Restoration is leading to an objectivity of observation of reality. It is leading to a great genre in English literature: the novel.
The Augustan Age
The Restoration was the beginning of the classicism; the age that followed it was th Augustan Age. The Golden Age of Roman literature was from 30 B.C. to 14 A.D.
Alexander Pope. His life and poetry
Alexander the Pope: The greatest of 18th century poets and the supreme exemplar of English classical literature. His form was elegant and his poetry was perfect heroic couplets
Pope succeeded as a man of letters. He had written his four pastorals (1709) in imitation of Vergil and had become thoroughly settled upon his future classical course by the age of twenty- three, when his Essay on Criticism (1711) was published. This poem reiterates his concept of the principles of neoclassical art as laid down from Aristotle.
The first of his two masterpieces was The Rape of the Lock (1712- 1714). It is the most sparkling of English verse satire. It is world literature’s chief example of the mock- heroic, a burlesque of the dignified form and weighty theme of the epic poem.
His most notable quotable poem is his Essay on Man (1732-34). Pope attempts an application of common sense to problems of the universe and the life of man. It is written in the form of four epistles. (First: man’s place nature, Second: individual ethic, Third: the origin of society and man’s relation to it, Fourth: man’s happiness spring)
Pope did translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Pope used his brilliant heroic couplet in these translations, and like Chapman, failed to find the simple dignity of Homer’s verse.
PREROMANTICISM (1750-1758)
PREROMANTICISM (1750-1758)
Historical and Cultural Background
George III ruled from 1760 until 1820 and his reign proved to be a period of notable transitions for England in politics, social and economic structure, and in the arts.
He was not inclined to allow the government to be managed by ministers and Parliament. George did intend to control Parliament, trough the granting of royal favors to the great lords who controlled masses of voters, the king did gain a semblance of control.
In 1760, England was at her peak of prestige in Europe up to that time. By 1783, England had lost her American colonies and much of her former European influence
Signposts of a transition period
Briefly, these signs were evidence of the transition from neoclassicism to romanticism on the English literary scene:
A growing hostility toward classic production and imitations
A neglect of the ancients. Their imitations and translations of original were being less and less discussed and read. Shakespeare and Milton were being talked about with enthusiasm
A reviving interest in the medieval ages in England and in the exotic East. Translations of tales such as The Arabian Nights were best sellers
Increasing interest in the real economic and social problems of the English people. People wanted to read of the life and scenery of their own country. They were sick of Greece and Rome
The shift from interest in classical France and other modern classical leaders on the continent
A search for novelty in ideas, themes and styles for expression
The neoclassical writers produced a literature for a rising bourgeoisie
A new glorification of the individual artist, apart from his production. Artists felt more and more restless desire to cater to this public adulation.
The Rise of Romanticism (1784-1798)
Rebellion of the individual
Logic and rationalism had brought the English middle and lower classes to a realization that they too must be a part of life and culture. Industrialization had given them a taste of what lay above, economically. The new ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity called up an immediate emotional reaction. In literature, this sudden burst of emotional and sensory perception on a mass scale results in romanticism in writing.
The young writers, filled with this atmosphere. They wanted freedom of expression, and their own choice of materials. They wanted to write about life as they saw. They wanted a new sensation to go forth from his pen, presented in a new form
New definitions of 'nature
The writer first identified himself with external nature, and then with his own very human nature.
Each writer now has his own standard for reaction to nature.
The early romantics showed themselves according to the two general reactions which would come from quite or violent human natures, both in rebellion.
They were filled with heir sensations resulting from nature about them, physical nature, and their own natural reactions.
The new discoverers of nature looked into the future and dreamed of what thigs could be like.
Jane Austen. Her life and works
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose books, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for their wit, social observation and insights into the lives of early 19th century women.
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. She was one of eight children of a clergyman and grew up in a close-knit family. She began to write as a teenager. In 1801 the family moved to Bath. After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton, near
Steventon.
Jane's brother Henry helped her negotiate with a publisher and her first novel, 'Sense and Sensibility', appeared in 1811. Her next novel 'Pride and Prejudice', which she described as her "own darling child" received highly favourable reviews. 'Mansfield Park' was published in 1814, then 'Emma' in 1816. 'Emma' was dedicated to the prince regent, an admirer of her work. All of Jane Austen's novels were published anonymously.
In 1816, Jane began to suffer from ill-health, probably due to Addison's disease. She travelled
to Winchester to receive treatment, and died there on 18 July 1817. Two more novels, 'Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published posthumously and a final novel was left incomplete. THE RAPE OF THE LOCK, by Alexander Pope http://poetry.eserver.org/rape-of-the-lock.html
Context
Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. As a Roman Catholic living during a time of Protestant consolidation in England, he was largely excluded from the university system and from political life, and suffered certain social and economic disadvantages because of his religion as well. He learned several languages on his own, and his early verses were often imitations of poets he admired.
Pope wrote during the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and the regained sense of political stability led to a resurgence of support for the arts. The Rape of the Lock is one of the most famous English-language examples of the mock-epic. Published in its first version in 1712, when Pope was only 23 years old. The inspiration for the poem was an actual incident among Pope’s acquaintances in which Robert, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor’s hair, and the young people’s families fell into strife as a result. John Caryll, another member of this same circle of prominent Roman Catholics, asked Pope to write a light poem that would put the episode into a humorous perspective and reconcile the two families. The poem was originally published in a shorter version, which Pope later revised. In this later version he added the “machinery,” the retinue of supernaturals who influence the action as well as the moral of the tale.
He later recommenced to write original poetry, Pope struck a more serious tone than the one he gave to The Rape of the Lock. Some of them are Essay on Man and Dunciad.
Form of the literary writing: The Rape of the Lock is a humorous indictment of the vanities and idleness of 18th-century high society. The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic.
Summary
Belinda arises to prepare for the day’s social activities after sleeping late. Her guardian sylph, Ariel, warned her in a dream that some disaster will befall her, and promises to protect her to the best of his abilities. Belinda takes little notice of this oracle, however. After an elaborate ritual of dressing and primping, she travels on the Thames River to Hampton Court Palace, an ancient royal residence outside of London, where a group of wealthy young socialites are gathering for a party. Among them is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to steal a lock of Belinda’s hair. He has risen early to perform and elaborate set of prayers and sacrifices to promote success in this enterprise. When the partygoers arrive at the palace, they enjoy a tense game of cards, which Pope describes in mock-heroic terms as a battle. This is followed by a round of coffee. Then the Baron takes up a pair of scissors and manages, on the third try, to cut off the coveted lock of Belinda’s hair. Belinda is furious. Umbriel, a mischievous gnome, journeys down to the Cave of Spleen to procure a sack of sighs and a flask of tears which he then bestows on the heroine to fan the flames of her ire. Clarissa, who had aided the Baron in his crime, now urges Belinda to give up her anger in favor of good humor and good sense, moral qualities which will outlast her vanities. But Clarissa’s moralizing falls on deaf ears, and Belinda initiates a scuffle between the ladies and the gentlemen, in which she attempts to recover the severed curl. The lock is lost in the confusion of this mock battle, however; the poet consoles the bereft Belinda with the suggestion that it has been taken up into the heavens and immortalized as a constellation.
Characters
Belinda - Belinda is based on the historical Arabella Fermor, a member of Pope’s circle of prominent Roman Catholics. Robert, Lord Petre (the Baron in the poem) had precipitated a rift between their two families by snipping off a lock of her hair. The Baron - This is the pseudonym for the historical Robert, Lord Petre, the young gentleman in Pope’s social circle who offended Arabella Fermor and her family by cutting off a lock of her hair. In the poem’s version of events, Arabella is known as Belinda. Caryl - The historical basis for the Caryl character is John Caryll, a friend of Pope and of the two families that had become estranged over the incident the poem relates. It was Caryll who suggested that Pope encourage a reconciliation by writing a humorous poem. Goddess - The muse who, according to classical convention, inspires poets to write their verses Shock - Belinda’s lapdog Ariel - Belinda’s guardian sylph, who oversees an army of invisible protective deities Umbriel - The chief gnome, who travels to the Cave of Spleen and returns with bundles of sighs and tears to aggravate Belinda’s vexation Brillante - The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s earrings Momentilla - The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s watch Crispissa - The sylph who is assigned to guard Belinda’s “fav’rite Lock” Clarissa - A woman in attendance at the Hampton Court party. She lends the Baron the pair of scissors with which he cuts Belinda’s hair, and later delivers a moralizing lecture. Thalestris - Belinda’s friend, named for the Queen of the Amazons and representing the historical Gertrude Morley, a friend of Pope’s and the wife of Sir George Browne (rendered as her “beau,” Sir Plume, in the poem). She eggs Belinda on in her anger and demands that the lock be returned. Sir Plume - Thalestris’s “beau,” who makes an ineffectual challenge to the Baron. He represents the historical Sir George Browne, a member of Pope’s social circle.
Themes
The central theme of The Rape of the Lock is the fuss that high society makes over trifling matters, such as breaches of decorum. In the poem, a feud of epic proportions erupts after the Baron steals a lock of Belinda’s hair. In the real-life incident on which Pope based his poem, the Petre and the Fermor families had a falling-out after Lord Petre snipped off one of Arabella Fermor’s locks. Other themes that Pope develops in the poem include human vanity and the importance of being able to laugh at life’s little reversals. The latter motif is a kind of “moral to the story.” Clarissa touches upon both of these themes when addressing tearful Belinda, shorn of her lock:
But since, alas! frail Beauty must decay,
Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid,
What then remains but well our Pow'r to use,
And keep good Humour still whate'er we lose?
Discussion
Discuss two mock-heroic elements of the poem
One epic element of the poem is the involvement of capricious divinities in the lives of mortals. All of the following classic conventions appear in Pope’s poem as well: the ambiguous dream-warning that goes unheeded; prayers that are answered only in part, or with different outcomes than anticipated; a heavenly being’s renunciation of a human after pledging to protect her; mischievous plotting by deities to exacerbate situations on earth. All of the manifestations of these in Pope’s poem evoke the world of Greek and Roman gods who displayed malice as often as benevolence, and a susceptibility to flattery and favoritism. A second mock-heroic element is the description of games and trivial altercations in terms of warfare. First the card game, then the cutting of the lock, and finally the scuffle at the end, are all described with the high drama attending serious battles. Pope’s displays his creative genius in the dexterity with which he makes every element of the scene correspond to some recognizable epic convention. He turns everyday objects—a petticoat, a curl, a pair of scissors, and a hairpin—into armor and weapons, and the allegory reflects on their real social significance in new and interesting ways.
What are some of the images that recur through the poem, and what significance do they have?
One of Pope’s primary images is the sun. By comparing Belinda’s radiance to solar radiance, he makes fun of her vanity and her pretensions. The sun marks the passing of time in the poem and emphasizes the dramatic unity of the story, which takes place all within a single day. Further, it forms part of the celestial framework of heavenly actions with which Pope surrounds the parallel earthly action, and the early allusions to the sun balance the ending in which the lock of hair ascends into the heavens as a constellation. Another image that recurs in the poem is that of china. Delicate dishes that are beautiful, fragile, and purely luxurious form a fitting physical counterpart to a world that is, in Pope’s depiction, almost entirely ornamental. The danger of broken china also stands for the fragility of female chastity, or of a person’s reputation. Pope also draws heavily on images of silver and gold (sometimes in solid form, sometimes as a gilded surface to another element), as appropriate to a poem that asks us to consider the real value underlying glittery and mesmerizing surfaces.
What function does the poem's supernatural machinery serve?
With Belinda’s dream (see Canto 1), Pope introduces the “machinery” of the poem—the supernatural powers that influence the action from behind the scenes. Here, the sprites (i.e. fairies) that watch over Belinda are meant to mimic the gods of the Greek and Roman traditions, who are sometimes benevolent and sometimes malicious, but always intimately involved in earthly events. The scheme also makes use of other ancient hierarchies and systems of order. Ariel explains that women’s spirits, when they die, return “to their first Elements.” Each female personality type (these types correspond to the four humours) is converted into a particular kind of sprite. These gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and nymphs, in turn, are associated with the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The airy sylphs are those who in their lifetimes were “light Coquettes”; they have a particular concern for Belinda because she is of this type, and this will be the aspect of feminine nature with which the poem is most concerned.
Is Pope being ironic when he treats Belinda's beauty as something almost divine?
From the first, Pope describes Belinda’s beauty as something divine, an assessment which she herself corroborates in the first canto when she creates, at least metaphorically, an altar to her own image. This praise is certainly in some sense ironical, reflecting negatively on a system of public values in which external characteristics rank higher than moral or intellectual ones. But Pope also shows a real reverence for his heroine’s physical and social charms, claiming in lines 17–18 that these are compelling enough to cause one to forget her “female errors.” Certainly he has some interest in flattering Arabella Fermor, the real-life woman on whom Belinda is based; in order for his poem to achieve the desired reconciliation, it must not offend. Pope also exhibits his appreciation for the ways in which physical beauty is an art form: he recognizes, with a mixture of censure and awe, the fact that Belinda’s legendary locks of hair, which appear so natural and spontaneous, are actually a carefully contrived effect. In this, the mysteries of the lady’s dressing table are akin, perhaps, to Pope’s own literary art, which he describes elsewhere as “nature to advantage dress’d.”
To what degree can the poem be read as a sexual allegory?
The title of the poem already associates the cutting of Belinda’s hair with a more explicit sexual conquest, and here Pope cultivates that suggestion. He multiplies his sexually metaphorical language for the incident, adding words like “ravish” and “betray” to the “rape” of the title. He also slips in some commentary on the implications of his society’s sexual mores, as when he remarks that “when success a Lover’s toil attends, / few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.” When Ariel speculates about the possible forms the “dire disaster” might take, he includes a breach of chastity (“Diana’s law”), the breaking of china (another allusion to the loss of virginity), and the staining of honor or a gown (the two incommensurate events could happen equally easily and accidentally). He also mentions some pettier social “disasters” against which the Sylphs are equally prepared to fight, like missing a ball (here, as grave as missing prayers) or losing the lapdog. In the Sylphs’ defensive efforts, Belinda’s petticoat is the battlefield that requires the most extensive fortifications. This fact furthers the idea that the rape of the lock stands in for a literal rape, or at least represents a threat to her chastity more serious than just the mere theft of a curl.
What are the distinctive format features of Pope's poetry?
In English literature, Augustan poetry is a branch of Augustan literature, and refers to the poetry of the eighteenth-century, specifically the first half of the century. 18th century English poetry was political, satirical, and marked by the central philosophical problem of whether the individual or society took precedence as the subject of verse. The entire Augustan age's poetry was dominated by Alexander Pope. From a technical point of view, few poets have ever approached Alexander Pope's perfection at the iambic pentameter closed couplet ("heroic verse"), and his lines were repeated often enough to lend quite a few clichés and proverbs to modern English usage. However, if Pope had few rivals, he had many enemies. His technical perfection did not shelter him from political, philosophical, or religious opponents, and Pope himself was quarrelsome in print. His very technical superiority led Pope to injudicious improvements in his editing and translation of other authors. However, Pope and his enemies (often called "the Dunces" because of Pope's successful satirizing of them in The Dunciad of 1727 and 1738) fought over central matters of the proper subject matter for poetry and the proper pose of the poetic voice, and the excesses and missteps, as much as the achievements, of both sides demonstrated the stakes of the battle.
How is the heroic couplet suited to Pope's subject matter, or to satire more generally?
The verse form of The Rape of the Lock is the heroic couplet; Pope still reigns as the uncontested master of the form. The heroic couplet consists of rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter lines (lines of ten syllables each, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables). Pope’s couplets do not fall into strict iambs, however, flowering instead with a rich rhythmic variation that keeps the highly regular meter from becoming heavy or tedious. Pope distributes his sentences, with their resolutely parallel grammar, across the lines and half-lines of the poem in a way that enhances the judicious quality of his ideas. Moreover, the inherent balance of the couplet form is strikingly well suited to a subject matter that draws on comparisons and contrasts: the form invites configurations in which two ideas or circumstances are balanced, measured, or compared against one another. It is thus perfect for the evaluative, moralizing premise of the poem, particularly in the hands of this brilliant poet.
libwebspace.library.cmu.edu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juTfMyB52fQ
Let's work on some new literary periods!!!
THE NEOCLASSICAL AGE (1660-1750)
- Historical and Cultural Background
- It is settled in the period after the Commonwealth War.
Charles II came to London as King o England- He leaned to Catholicism and believed in the divine right of kings. He was Against the Puritan Tradition.
- England : -became democratic.
- Increase the sea power.- Stability and order were the rules there. "Live and let live"
An era of religious, political and commercial conflict
- Charles died and James II. He started a period of terror loosing the suport of every sector of society. He did not respect all that his brother did.
-He converted Protestants seminaries into Catholic ones, dismissed Oxford Proffesors, turned deaf ear to the will of Parliament, etc.Death of the "divine rigths" of kings.
- New Classical Literature
- Restoration and Rennaisance compared: a new world of artistic endeavor and experimentation was open for the exploration of both the here and the beyond. It was replaced the Renaissance emphasis on the imagination on invention and experimentation, and on mysticism with an emphasis on order and reason. Men was the most appropriate subject of art, and saw art itself as essentially pragmatic — as valuable because it was somehow useful — and as something which was properly intellectual rather than emotional.
- Rennaisance and Puritan 'otherworldliness' compared: in the restoration period, there was and inclination to accept the reality of the present, to write circunstances as they were. Renaissance thought was pagan, fanciful and experimental; Puritan thought was tied to the mandates of the supernatural, as represented in Reformation orthodoxy. The restoration attempted to restore some of the lightness to literature , but the result is artificially
- From subjectivity towards objectivity
The age of the Restoration is leading to an objectivity of observation of reality. It is leading to a great genre in English literature: the novel.- The Augustan Age
The Restoration was the beginning of the classicism; the age that followed it was th Augustan Age. The Golden Age of Roman literature was from 30 B.C. to 14 A.D.- Alexander Pope. His life and poetry
Alexander the Pope: The greatest of 18th century poets and the supreme exemplar of English classical literature. His form was elegant and his poetry was perfect heroic coupletsPope succeeded as a man of letters. He had written his four pastorals (1709) in imitation of Vergil and had become thoroughly settled upon his future classical course by the age of twenty- three, when his Essay on Criticism (1711) was published. This poem reiterates his concept of the principles of neoclassical art as laid down from Aristotle.
The first of his two masterpieces was The Rape of the Lock (1712- 1714). It is the most sparkling of English verse satire. It is world literature’s chief example of the mock- heroic, a burlesque of the dignified form and weighty theme of the epic poem.
His most notable quotable poem is his Essay on Man (1732-34). Pope attempts an application of common sense to problems of the universe and the life of man. It is written in the form of four epistles. (First: man’s place nature, Second: individual ethic, Third: the origin of society and man’s relation to it, Fourth: man’s happiness spring)
Pope did translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Pope used his brilliant heroic couplet in these translations, and like Chapman, failed to find the simple dignity of Homer’s verse.
George III ruled from 1760 until 1820 and his reign proved to be a period of notable transitions for England in politics, social and economic structure, and in the arts.
He was not inclined to allow the government to be managed by ministers and Parliament. George did intend to control Parliament, trough the granting of royal favors to the great lords who controlled masses of voters, the king did gain a semblance of control.
In 1760, England was at her peak of prestige in Europe up to that time. By 1783, England had lost her American colonies and much of her former European influence
- Signposts of a transition period
Briefly, these signs were evidence of the transition from neoclassicism to romanticism on the English literary scene:Logic and rationalism had brought the English middle and lower classes to a realization that they too must be a part of life and culture. Industrialization had given them a taste of what lay above, economically. The new ideas of liberty, equality, and fraternity called up an immediate emotional reaction. In literature, this sudden burst of emotional and sensory perception on a mass scale results in romanticism in writing.
The young writers, filled with this atmosphere. They wanted freedom of expression, and their own choice of materials. They wanted to write about life as they saw. They wanted a new sensation to go forth from his pen, presented in a new form
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose books, set among the English middle and upper classes, are notable for their wit, social observation and insights into the lives of early 19th century women.
Jane Austen was born on 16 December 1775 in the village of Steventon in Hampshire. She was one of eight children of a clergyman and grew up in a close-knit family. She began to write as a teenager. In 1801 the family moved to Bath. After the death of Jane's father in 1805 Jane, her sister Cassandra and their mother moved several times eventually settling in Chawton, near
Steventon.
Jane's brother Henry helped her negotiate with a publisher and her first novel, 'Sense and Sensibility', appeared in 1811. Her next novel 'Pride and Prejudice', which she described as her "own darling child" received highly favourable reviews. 'Mansfield Park' was published in 1814, then 'Emma' in 1816. 'Emma' was dedicated to the prince regent, an admirer of her work. All of Jane Austen's novels were published anonymously.
In 1816, Jane began to suffer from ill-health, probably due to Addison's disease. She travelled
to Winchester to receive treatment, and died there on 18 July 1817. Two more novels, 'Persuasion' and 'Northanger Abbey' were published posthumously and a final novel was left incomplete.
THE RAPE OF THE LOCK, by Alexander Pope http://poetry.eserver.org/rape-of-the-lock.html
- Context
Alexander Pope was born in London in 1688. As a Roman Catholic living during a time of Protestant consolidation in England, he was largely excluded from the university system and from political life, and suffered certain social and economic disadvantages because of his religion as well. He learned several languages on his own, and his early verses were often imitations of poets he admired.Pope wrote during the English Civil Wars and the Glorious Revolution, and the regained sense of political stability led to a resurgence of support for the arts.
The Rape of the Lock is one of the most famous English-language examples of the mock-epic. Published in its first version in 1712, when Pope was only 23 years old. The inspiration for the poem was an actual incident among Pope’s acquaintances in which Robert, Lord Petre, cut off a lock of Arabella Fermor’s hair, and the young people’s families fell into strife as a result. John Caryll, another member of this same circle of prominent Roman Catholics, asked Pope to write a light poem that would put the episode into a humorous perspective and reconcile the two families. The poem was originally published in a shorter version, which Pope later revised. In this later version he added the “machinery,” the retinue of supernaturals who influence the action as well as the moral of the tale.
He later recommenced to write original poetry, Pope struck a more serious tone than the one he gave to The Rape of the Lock. Some of them are Essay on Man and Dunciad.
- Form of the literary writing: The Rape of the Lock is a humorous indictment of the vanities and idleness of 18th-century high society. The poem is perhaps the most outstanding example in the English language of the genre of mock-epic.
- Summary
Belinda arises to prepare for the day’s social activities after sleeping late. Her guardian sylph, Ariel, warned her in a dream that some disaster will befall her, and promises to protect her to the best of his abilities. Belinda takes little notice of this oracle, however. After an elaborate ritual of dressing and primping, she travels on the Thames River to Hampton Court Palace, an ancient royal residence outside of London, where a group of wealthy young socialites are gathering for a party. Among them is the Baron, who has already made up his mind to steal a lock of Belinda’s hair. He has risen early to perform and elaborate set of prayers and sacrifices to promote success in this enterprise. When the partygoers arrive at the palace, they enjoy a tense game of cards, which Pope describes in mock-heroic terms as a battle. This is followed by a round of coffee. Then the Baron takes up a pair of scissors and manages, on the third try, to cut off the coveted lock of Belinda’s hair. Belinda is furious. Umbriel, a mischievous gnome, journeys down to the Cave of Spleen to procure a sack of sighs and a flask of tears which he then bestows on the heroine to fan the flames of her ire. Clarissa, who had aided the Baron in his crime, now urges Belinda to give up her anger in favor of good humor and good sense, moral qualities which will outlast her vanities. But Clarissa’s moralizing falls on deaf ears, and Belinda initiates a scuffle between the ladies and the gentlemen, in which she attempts to recover the severed curl. The lock is lost in the confusion of this mock battle, however; the poet consoles the bereft Belinda with the suggestion that it has been taken up into the heavens and immortalized as a constellation.- Characters
Belinda - Belinda is based on the historical Arabella Fermor, a member of Pope’s circle of prominent Roman Catholics. Robert, Lord Petre (the Baron in the poem) had precipitated a rift between their two families by snipping off a lock of her hair.The central theme of The Rape of the Lock is the fuss that high society makes over trifling matters, such as breaches of decorum. In the poem, a feud of epic proportions erupts after the Baron steals a lock of Belinda’s hair. In the real-life incident on which Pope based his poem, the Petre and the Fermor families had a falling-out after Lord Petre snipped off one of Arabella Fermor’s locks. Other themes that Pope develops in the poem include human vanity and the importance of being able to laugh at life’s little reversals. The latter motif is a kind of “moral to the story.” Clarissa touches upon both of these themes when addressing tearful Belinda, shorn of her lock:
But since, alas! frail Beauty must decay,
Curl'd or uncurl'd, since Locks will turn to grey;
Since painted, or not painted, all shall fade,
And she who scorns a Man, must die a Maid,
What then remains but well our Pow'r to use,
And keep good Humour still whate'er we lose?
- Discussion
- What function does the poem's supernatural machinery serve?
With Belinda’s dream (see Canto 1), Pope introduces the “machinery” of the poem—the supernatural powers that influence the action from behind the scenes. Here, the sprites (i.e. fairies) that watch over Belinda are meant to mimic the gods of the Greek and Roman traditions, who are sometimes benevolent and sometimes malicious, but always intimately involved in earthly events. The scheme also makes use of other ancient hierarchies and systems of order. Ariel explains that women’s spirits, when they die, return “to their first Elements.” Each female personality type (these types correspond to the four humours) is converted into a particular kind of sprite. These gnomes, sylphs, salamanders, and nymphs, in turn, are associated with the four elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The airy sylphs are those who in their lifetimes were “light Coquettes”; they have a particular concern for Belinda because she is of this type, and this will be the aspect of feminine nature with which the poem is most concerned.- Discuss two mock-heroic elements of the poem
One epic element of the poem is the involvement of capricious divinities in the lives of mortals. All of the following classic conventions appear in Pope’s poem as well: the ambiguous dream-warning that goes unheeded; prayers that are answered only in part, or with different outcomes than anticipated; a heavenly being’s renunciation of a human after pledging to protect her; mischievous plotting by deities to exacerbate situations on earth. All of the manifestations of these in Pope’s poem evoke the world of Greek and Roman gods who displayed malice as often as benevolence, and a susceptibility to flattery and favoritism. A second mock-heroic element is the description of games and trivial altercations in terms of warfare. First the card game, then the cutting of the lock, and finally the scuffle at the end, are all described with the high drama attending serious battles. Pope’s displays his creative genius in the dexterity with which he makes every element of the scene correspond to some recognizable epic convention. He turns everyday objects—a petticoat, a curl, a pair of scissors, and a hairpin—into armor and weapons, and the allegory reflects on their real social significance in new and interesting ways.- What are some of the images that recur through the poem, and what significance do they have?
One of Pope’s primary images is the sun. By comparing Belinda’s radiance to solar radiance, he makes fun of her vanity and her pretensions. The sun marks the passing of time in the poem and emphasizes the dramatic unity of the story, which takes place all within a single day. Further, it forms part of the celestial framework of heavenly actions with which Pope surrounds the parallel earthly action, and the early allusions to the sun balance the ending in which the lock of hair ascends into the heavens as a constellation. Another image that recurs in the poem is that of china. Delicate dishes that are beautiful, fragile, and purely luxurious form a fitting physical counterpart to a world that is, in Pope’s depiction, almost entirely ornamental. The danger of broken china also stands for the fragility of female chastity, or of a person’s reputation. Pope also draws heavily on images of silver and gold (sometimes in solid form, sometimes as a gilded surface to another element), as appropriate to a poem that asks us to consider the real value underlying glittery and mesmerizing surfaces.- Is Pope being ironic when he treats Belinda's beauty as something almost divine?
From the first, Pope describes Belinda’s beauty as something divine, an assessment which she herself corroborates in the first canto when she creates, at least metaphorically, an altar to her own image. This praise is certainly in some sense ironical, reflecting negatively on a system of public values in which external characteristics rank higher than moral or intellectual ones. But Pope also shows a real reverence for his heroine’s physical and social charms, claiming in lines 17–18 that these are compelling enough to cause one to forget her “female errors.” Certainly he has some interest in flattering Arabella Fermor, the real-life woman on whom Belinda is based; in order for his poem to achieve the desired reconciliation, it must not offend. Pope also exhibits his appreciation for the ways in which physical beauty is an art form: he recognizes, with a mixture of censure and awe, the fact that Belinda’s legendary locks of hair, which appear so natural and spontaneous, are actually a carefully contrived effect. In this, the mysteries of the lady’s dressing table are akin, perhaps, to Pope’s own literary art, which he describes elsewhere as “nature to advantage dress’d.”- To what degree can the poem be read as a sexual allegory?
The title of the poem already associates the cutting of Belinda’s hair with a more explicit sexual conquest, and here Pope cultivates that suggestion. He multiplies his sexually metaphorical language for the incident, adding words like “ravish” and “betray” to the “rape” of the title. He also slips in some commentary on the implications of his society’s sexual mores, as when he remarks that “when success a Lover’s toil attends, / few ask, if fraud or force attain’d his ends.” When Ariel speculates about the possible forms the “dire disaster” might take, he includes a breach of chastity (“Diana’s law”), the breaking of china (another allusion to the loss of virginity), and the staining of honor or a gown (the two incommensurate events could happen equally easily and accidentally). He also mentions some pettier social “disasters” against which the Sylphs are equally prepared to fight, like missing a ball (here, as grave as missing prayers) or losing the lapdog. In the Sylphs’ defensive efforts, Belinda’s petticoat is the battlefield that requires the most extensive fortifications. This fact furthers the idea that the rape of the lock stands in for a literal rape, or at least represents a threat to her chastity more serious than just the mere theft of a curl.- What are the distinctive format features of Pope's poetry?
In English literature, Augustan poetry is a branch of Augustan literature, and refers to the poetry of the eighteenth-century, specifically the first half of the century. 18th century English poetry was political, satirical, and marked by the central philosophical problem of whether the individual or society took precedence as the subject of verse. The entire Augustan age's poetry was dominated by Alexander Pope. From a technical point of view, few poets have ever approached Alexander Pope's perfection at the iambic pentameter closed couplet ("heroic verse"), and his lines were repeated often enough to lend quite a few clichés and proverbs to modern English usage. However, if Pope had few rivals, he had many enemies. His technical perfection did not shelter him from political, philosophical, or religious opponents, and Pope himself was quarrelsome in print. His very technical superiority led Pope to injudicious improvements in his editing and translation of other authors. However, Pope and his enemies (often called "the Dunces" because of Pope's successful satirizing of them in The Dunciad of 1727 and 1738) fought over central matters of the proper subject matter for poetry and the proper pose of the poetic voice, and the excesses and missteps, as much as the achievements, of both sides demonstrated the stakes of the battle.- How is the heroic couplet suited to Pope's subject matter, or to satire more generally?
The verse form of The Rape of the Lock is the heroic couplet; Pope still reigns as the uncontested master of the form. The heroic couplet consists of rhymed pairs of iambic pentameter lines (lines of ten syllables each, alternating stressed and unstressed syllables). Pope’s couplets do not fall into strict iambs, however, flowering instead with a rich rhythmic variation that keeps the highly regular meter from becoming heavy or tedious. Pope distributes his sentences, with their resolutely parallel grammar, across the lines and half-lines of the poem in a way that enhances the judicious quality of his ideas. Moreover, the inherent balance of the couplet form is strikingly well suited to a subject matter that draws on comparisons and contrasts: the form invites configurations in which two ideas or circumstances are balanced, measured, or compared against one another. It is thus perfect for the evaluative, moralizing premise of the poem, particularly in the hands of this brilliant poet.